Baked beans

Nigerians put baked beans in salad. I kinda like it.


Just thought I'd share that with you.

Thanksgiving

Religion is omnipresent here. It’s on every street, at every meeting, in every utterance.

Meetings and workshops have not officially started until someone has said an opening prayer, not concluded until someone else – usually of a different religious persuasion – has spoken the closing prayer. When working on how to prepare a training session plan with a group of Nigerians, one group stated that the ‘objective’ of their first activity – an opening prayer – was ‘to commit the session to God’; quite a culture shock for a Brit.

Religion, or maybe faith, is such a part of everyday speech, that for a non-believer, it actually presents something of a language barrier. Nigerians don’t say ‘hopefully’, they say ‘Gods willing’ or ‘Insha’Allah’. The answer to ‘How is work?’ or ‘How was your holiday’ is often not the almost ubiquitous reply of ‘Fine’, but ‘We thank God’. No-one says ‘Keep your fingers crossed’ – they say ‘Let’s pray’.

I can’t say whether it’s being immersed in language peppered with constant reminders of a supreme being*, or whether it’s the fact that over the past 7 months I’ve been exposed to far greater risks than in the 28 years preceding them, but sometimes I find myself wanting to ask Someone, for example, to make my journey a safe one, and to thank Them when I arrive somewhere in one piece.

It happened after we had been snowed-in at Brussels airport for 2 nights while flying back to the UK last month. We were on the last plane to leave Abuja for London and we were one of the last planes to leave Brussels airport before they ran out of de-icer, so I considered us very lucky, all things considered. I was very thankful that we had not missed Christmas with our families, that the timing had worked out in our favour. But whom to thank? I was struck, too, when talking about our ordeal to people of faith at home, that they too rejected the word ‘lucky’ and instead used phrases like ‘we were praying for you’ or ‘God’s hand was with you’.

Learning to live here in Nigeria, without the home comforts of the UK, I find myself frequently grateful for the things I own, the relationships I have, the opportunities I’ve been given – but with nowhere to direct my gratitude. I think of the Americans, with their Thanksgiving holiday, and how cathartic that must feel – to be able to express that gratitude. I think of their own language and culture, also much richer with religion than mine: you can’t imagine Oprah or Obama saying they felt ‘lucky’ – they would use the word ‘blessed’.

Now, I don’t believe that there is someone responsible for the chance timing of our Christmas flight, someone who deserves gratitude for the opportunities and – well, here secular words fail me – blessings in my life, or a supreme being who is able to control whether my journey is safe or not. But I have to say that, at times, I find myself all full of gratitude and nowhere to go with it.

* In Linguistics, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis – largely dismissed by most linguists – posits that our language informs and limits our thoughts: if we can’t express it, we can’t think it. Of course, it’s a crazy idea (otherwise, for example, new vocabulary would never be invented), but it interests me that, when immersed in a different English from my own, my very thoughts and feelings seem to be taken in a different direction.

A typical Sunday in Kaduna

I woke around ten and boiled some water for my shower. We have a water heater in our bathroom, but it’s very temperamental and I rarely give it the time of day. Showering in our house means filling a bucket from the tap, adding a pan of hot water from the stove to take the edge off, and then kneeling in the bath, scooping bowlfuls of water from the bucket over yourself; sounds less than comfortable, but actually it’s an art I’ve mastered and quite enjoy now (particularly when water’s scarce and you can get competitive about how little you can shower with!).

After bathing, I swept our tiled floors – the Harmattan dust leaves a thin film daily. NEPA returned around 11, so I plugged everything in that needed charging, made myself a cup of tea and sat on the sofa reading last week’s treasured Saturday Guardian, brought back with us from the UK. Simon emerged from his lie-in and we made eggy bread and coffee and breakfasted to the sound of Radio 4 on iPlayer: bliss.

The children from next door paid us a visit to play with the toys we brought back from the UK – colouring books and cracker presents. An hour or so passed, playing with the children, showing them how certain toys worked and letting them try on Simon’s many hats (including our motorbike helmets!); exhausting, actually, and quite revealing about my lack of capacity for play (I’m more like Monica Geller every day: I, too, “can be fun at organised, indoor projects”).

At around 3, inspired by all the talk of New Year’s resolutions and regimes in the paper and radio, we walked down to the football stadium (about 15 mins from our house) and went for a run. The dust and the wind nearly killed us! We barely made it once round before we were struggling for breath and had to stop; very annoying that the temperature at the moment is perfect for running, but the air quality is deathly! Limping home, we picked up some shopping en route: peppermint tea bags and vegetable oil from ‘Stop ‘n’ Shop’ (the Lebanase supermarket at the end of Kigo Road – with western products and western prices); vegetables from the man who’s suddenly appeared with a wooden stall at the junction; and some dried beans, sugar and matches from one of the many little shed-shops.

When we got home, the NEPA and water were still going strong, so I took the opportunity to clean the bathroom (without electricity, the tiny window gives very little light, so it’s easy to bathe it filth for days without knowing it if NEPA doesn’t coincide with showering!) and finished washing the towels, which we’d left soaking in a bucket of boiling hot water. I’d forgotten how hard hand-washing is on your back: bending over the bath, rinsing and wringing it out is exhausting (and hopefully a half decent workout!).

In the evening we cooked for a couple of other British volunteers and our neighbour, Tony. Halfway through, with impeccable timing, our gas bottle ran out, but luckily Tony offered to lend us his to cook the rest of the dinner: another example of problems caused by lack of infrastructure easily overcome by community spirit. An hour or so later, we enjoyed bean burgers, roast potatoes, boiled veg and gravy (Bisto all the way from home!), followed by slices of watermelon and washed down with red wine kindly provided by our guests. 

What a difference three weeks make

So here we are, back in Kaduna after almost three weeks visiting friends, family and snow in the UK. The weather has changed pretty dramatically: these are proper harmattan conditions. The dust is everywhere – my skin never feels properly clean, my nose and ears are getting bunged up and I can’t stop sneezing. All surfaces in our house and office, despite the windows being closed, were covered with a significant layer of the stuff and took some serious cleaning. The temperature has dropped dramatically and, even though I’ve just returned from below-freezing Britain, I still feel really cold here! I never thought I would not only need a blanket on my bed in Nigeria, but also still feel cold when under it.

The security situation has become slightly tauter since we left, with bombs going off in several places (nowhere near Kaduna) over the festive period and the primaries for the upcoming elections having just kicked off. Kaduna still feels pretty safe to me, and VSO continues to look out for us. I’m really not sure what to expect from the next few months: with the election happening in April, it could be a very turbulent time, and I suppose it’s possible we’ll be advised to leave Kaduna or even Nigeria for a short period. Or, it could all be disproportionate worry and the whole thing could pass with just a few hiccups here and there. We’ll see.

It’s actually really lovely to be back here. Being, as I am, averse to change, I’m always focussed on the safe, comfortable, known experience I’m leaving, rather than the exciting potential I’m moving towards; so the plane journey was full of memories of the people to whom I’d just said goodbye and nostalgia for things like Caffe Nero and The BBC. But as soon as I walked up to the passport control desk and spoke to my first Nigerian – who was very friendly and delighted that I could speak a bit of Hausa – I was happy to be back.

I’ve loved being reunited with mango trees, with their leaves like grasping fingers overlapping, and the beautiful magenta flowers of bougainvillea plants lolling over roadside walls. I’ve rejoiced in walking down our road and saying ‘Good Afternoon’ to people and being given free grilled plantain by a street food lady. I’ve even enjoyed the speed and thrill of okada rides. And it’s all made more special by the fact that we’ve got lots of little reminders of home and Christmas around us now too – photos, Christmas presents, chocolate, cheese, sweeties, Marmite, new books to read…!

And, at the risk of being unremittingly jolly about everything (for those of you growing tired of it, cf. paragraph 2)…OUR BROKEN TRANSFORMER’S BEEN FIXED!!!! We now have at least a chance of NEPA every single day. And since we’ve been back, we’ve had both power and water almost constantly, taunting us with the illusion that maybe it’s ALL been fixed, and the whole of Nigeria’s going to work from now on.